Do You Remember...

Rating: 9/10 (23 July 2013)

Do you remember what it was like to experience wonder, as a child, at the flickering images on the screen. You didn't know that's what they were back then, or that the odd plot contrivance was just that and could mean the world (internet trolling didn't exist yet...). It was imperfect, but honest, immersive fun.
This is the virtue of the nostalgic underdog film. A film that smells an untapped niche and goes on a joyful rampage through it. I think it's fair to say the original Indiana Jones did just that, revive childhood memories to create a roller-coaster devoid of cynicism. Gremlins did it. More recently, District 9 did it too.
The Summer of 2013 gave us many examples of modern cinema at its worst: the cynical exploitation of childhood memories, evident in one sub-par reboot/remake after another. Action cinema as a whole has been aching from an emphasis on noise and scale rather than emotion and choreography (not just of action, but design and movement, both within and before the camera). It helps to have the new film of an earnest, geeky master to look forward to.
Enter Guillermo Del Toro. Enter Pacific Rim. And here, hidden under a confused marketing campaign, is what we've been waiting for. A film that balances respectful nostalgia with irreverence (something Transformers and Man of Steel did all wrong in their respective extremes), a film that makes you remember what it was like to be a kid again. Rather than washed-out, fast-cut chaos, we get a neon-colored ballet of destruction through locations and between creatures and robots that scream the love of their creators in every frame.
It's a silly film brilliantly made, and just when you wonder whether it isn't throwing certain tropes of its genre at you too literally - whether it be certain sub-stellar performances, mainly from leading man Charlie Hunman, a often predictable plot, etc. - it surprises you with a moment of sheer beauty.
It makes you remember what it was like to be amazed, and it makes you hope. That the Kaiju genre is back for good. That people continue shoveling money at Guillermo Del Toro. That his Hellboy III and Mountains of Madness get made. That we see more of the great Idris Elba and Rinko Kikuchi, not to mention Mana Ashida (showcased here in a phenomenal flashback scene).
A solid 9, no question about it.